


Never Shined Through In What I've Shown

by midnightwriter



Category: Triple Frontier (2019)
Genre: DADT Repeal, Feelings Realization, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2020-01-12 13:51:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18447881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightwriter/pseuds/midnightwriter
Summary: "As William got closer to the bathroom, he heard a voice that made his heart skip a beat. It had been almost three years since he heard that voice in person, but it was unmistakably Santiago's."Pope gets back to the USA after three years. The first place he goes to is William's new house.





	Never Shined Through In What I've Shown

**Author's Note:**

> English isn't my first language and I don't have a beta, so I appreciate if you point mistakes and typos. Enjoy!

William walked inside his building after a long day of doing nothing and feeling lost. All he wanted was to get to his one-bedroom apartment, get in the shower and then go to bed for a dreamless night of sleep. This had been his routine for the past four months, and he was having a hard time changing it.

He was happy that he was finally able to retire completely from the Army and the speaking tour, but after twenty years in the service, it was difficult to know who he was and what he wanted outside the military.

He now had a real apartment that didn't belong in a barracks. His first real apartment.

 The first two months or so had been great. It felt good to have a place of his own, no time to wake up, no speeches to make. However, the novelty of it all didn't last long. Now, he felt useless, with no purpose. All of his friends and his brother had lives of their own, marriage, jobs, kids. William had... None of that.

He spent most of his life under DADT, and after its repeal, the message was too ingrained in his mind to adapt to anything else. He had lived a life of deprivation, used to following orders and putting his desires in second place. He had loved, yes, but the man he gave his heart to wasn't interested in love, only in conquering one heart after the other.

William didn't have resentments about it. Since a young age, he knew he was gay and he knew that people like him didn't get the white fence type of life. After joining the Army, he was happy enough over the fact that, occasionally, he would find other men like him, who were willing to share his bed for a few nights.

Three flights of stairs later - because the damn elevator had been broken for longer than he lived in this building -, he arrived at his door. Paper bag in hand, he was about to put his key in the keyhole when his instincts finally caught up with the image in front of him. The front door was open. Not completely open, no, just a tiny gap. It was thin enough that people walking by wouldn't notice it.

His right hand immediately went for his gun and he cursed in a whisper. He left the bag at the door and opened the door. While he walked inside, he made no sound; eyes and ears focusing on every movement, every shadow, and every sound.

All his fight left his body when he heard the shower on. No robber would get inside a place to take a shower. As William got closer to the bathroom, he heard a voice that made his heart skip a beat. It had been almost three years since he heard that voice in person, but it was unmistakably Santiago's. The fact that he was singing in Spanish added to William's conclusion. _One mystery solved_ , he thought. Now, what the fuck Pope was doing showering at his house was a whole new mystery. And he had every intention of figuring it out.

William opened the bathroom door, no ceremony behind it because doing a lot of noise was a safer way to approach a soldier than trying to sneak in quietly. William had never known of a time where Santiago had been unarmed, so it was best not to assume he would be just because he was showering.

"You don't call anymore?" William asked, and he almost could hear Santiago's smirk behind the yellow curtain.

"Tried to but you didn't pick up my call, and I really needed a shower."

William checked his phone and found three missing calls from an unknown number. He heard the first call half an hour ago and ignored it, thinking it was another one of those robot calls offering to sell something.

"So you just picked my lock and barged into my house?"

"I really needed to take a leak, too."

Santiago's apologetic smile showed up, as the man turned off the shower and opened the curtain. Not shame between them, they served together for long enough to not be bothered by each other's nudity. Also, William could still vividly remember a few times when he had touched, licked and kissed that whole body.

"You're paying for my lock," was all he said before leaving the bathroom to rescue his paper bag at the entrance door.

William was glad he had bought enough food to feed him for the whole week today. If Santiago had shown up two days ago, he would find nothing but old take-out food in the fridge.

It was something that never happened during his days in the army. The leisure, the will and the capacity to procrastinate or simply not do something. If William was being honest with himself, he didn't know what to do with this much free time and free will. He missed the order and structure at the same length he didn't miss it at all. It was hard to process all of those sudden changes. It was even harder to adapt, but he was getting there; or, at least, he was trying.

He put all the groceries in their proper places and separated the things he would need on the kitchen counter. The kitchen wasn't spacious but he had managed life with less space while sharing with a lot more people, so it didn't bother him.

Knowing Santiago as well as he did, the man hadn't eaten on the way here, driving like a mad man to get to where he wanted. Thus, William decided to make a _spaghetti a bolognese_ , fast and tasty. It briefly reminded him of the two days that their squad had been forced to stay in a small Italian city, protecting a USA diplomat and his family that was fleeing the Middle East.

They were young and thought that protecting a guy like that instead of being in the middle of the crossfire was a waste of their abilities. William shook his head, thinking that they had always been too eager for blood and violence. That night, Santiago and Ben had walked around the city, against Tom's orders, and found a nice restaurant. Later, they brought spaghetti to the whole squad and were immediately forgiven by Ben. It was hard to stay mad at those two idiots, William knew well.

"What are we having for dinner?" Santiago asked, fully dressed and hair still wet.

" _Spaghetti a bolognese_ ," he answered in a terrible Italian accent. Santiago laughed.

"It always reminds me of that day in Italy," Pope commented and, without invitation, started to wash the tomatoes.

"I was thinking the same thing."

"Ben barely had a beard back then. I think he was still going through puberty," Santiago joked.

"He was only nineteen," William noted with a heavy heart.

Santiago seemed to notice the somber tone of that observation and changed the subject. He had always been very good at reading William.

"How's he by the way? Still fighting?"

"You're telling me you don't have a file on each of us?"

"I'm not in the business anymore."

"You quit?"

"Yes. When I left for Australia I quit everything I had here."

"Didn't you get a job there?"

"I did. Now I don't."

"So we're both unemployed now? How far we have come!" William chuckled at that and was soon followed by Santiago's laughter.

"You retired?" Santiago asked after their laughter diminished. William nodded in agreement while putting the pasta to boil. "For real? Even from the fucking speeches?" He nodded again. Santiago made an impressed sound. "Never thought I'll live long enough to see that happen."

"Neither did I."

"Is strange, isn't it? Adapting to civilian life."

"What are you talking about, Pope? You never had a civilian life."

"I did. In Australia. I went there thinking that things were going to fall into place, that I'd get what Redfly and Catfish had. Family, stability and all that bullshit." William raised an eyebrow, silent questioning what happened. "I got some of that. Yovanna was- she was nice enough to welcome me in her home. But I read things wrong."

"What do you mean?"

"I thought she wanted me the same way I wanted her. But she didn't."

"I thought she-"

"Yeah, I did too. I was wrong. She said I had a good heart, but that I wasn't a good man, and she wanted a good man in her life for once."

"Ouch."

William smiled when Santiago stopped chopping the tomatoes to show him his middle finger.

 No heat behind their actions or words, everything between them felt comfortable and normal as if they had never been parted. It had always been like that between the five of them.

Their original squad had nine men, but the five of them were closer than the rest. Except for Mark "Big Mouth" Andrews, who served with them almost twenty years ago and had died; the first loss they had truly felt while soldiers. Unfortunately, not the last one.

"You are a good man."

William locked eyes with Santiago and said seriously, not a hint of joke behind those words. They had been misguided by their arrogance, bloodthirsty and flag, but William truly believed that they were good men. Even if being a soldier had enabled the worst of them to come out at certain times.

After that, they stayed silent while making dinner. Both men inside their own heads, thinking and rethinking about a variety of subjects. There was a lot they wished to forget and others they wished to remember... Most of the times, they wished to forget things they knew they had to remember and forgot what they wished they could remember. Like some cruel joke from their own brains.

They sat and served their plates, eating with gusto. Williams appreciating having company for the first time in months, and Santiago appreciating the familiarity of it all.

"Ben's going to marry next month," William told as the silence started to bother him. The silence itself didn't bother him, but being around someone as talkative as Pope and things being this quiet made everything fell wrong.

"Ben? Really?" Santiago seemed as shocked as William had been when his brother told him.

"Yeah, he got his girl, Audrey, pregnant and decided to do right by her."

"A baby? He's getting married and having a baby? That's one thing I did not expect to learn today."

"He didn't expect it either. It happened. You know how reckless he used to be. But after he learned about the baby he quitted the fighting, got himself a job in the private sector, and asked Audrey to marry him."

"Jesus! I stay away for three years and that boy suddenly becomes a man."

"There's more..."

"More?"

"Last month they found out the sex. It's a boy."

"A boy! The first boy of our squad!"

"He called me three days ago to say they're going to name him Tom."

"Ah!..."

The way Santiago said it was enough for William to know what he was thinking. The guilt was there, not even well hidden. William touched Santiago's hand on the table, making the man meet his eyes. He saw all the hurt inside and squeezed the hand he was holding.

"It was my fault."

"It wasn't your fault. I've told you that before. We all made the choice to go there, we knew the risks."

"I know you've forgiven me. But that's because the three of you are good friends, and not because it wasn't my fault."

Santiago's Spanish accent showed up in moments of extreme emotions like these. That's how their squad knew when he was truly mad or touched about something.

"Is there anything I can say to prove you otherwise?" He kindly asked, thumb caressing Santiago's hand.

"No, I don't think so..."

"So let's talk about something else." He smiled and got a smile in response. Their hands separating and going back to their sides. "You know who else got a baby?"

"I know is Catfish, but if I didn't know I'd still bet on him out of the two of you." They smiled at each other, shy but it seemed enough to put the ghost of the previous conversation to rest.

"He had another girl. Two months old now. The cutest thing."

"Yeah, he sent me pictures when she was born. She looks so much like him that I thought she would have a mustache too." 

"True. When I went to meet her, Rosa was complaining that she bared the child for nine months so she could look like Catfish had made her all by himself."

"It truly is a tragedy," they laughed and teased their friend.

Right after dinner, as they were cleaning the plates, Santiago received a message from Catfish with a video of his baby girl attached. They watched the video together. In it the baby sort of smiled. Catfish's voice was in the background saying, in fast Spanish, that she was smart and beautiful, and that she couldn't wait to meet her uncle Santiago.

Santiago called Catfish to say he was in USA soil again and soon would go there to meet her. William smiled softly listening to the conversation in Spanish and understanding most but not all of it. He had always enjoyed watching their conversations, so much that the duo had taught him to speak the language. His pronunciation wasn't anywhere as good as theirs, but he could hold a conversation if he wanted. Most of the time, he was simply glad to hear Santiago's voice while saying anything in Spanish.

He caught himself smiling at their banter and thought how sad it was that, in these past hours, he had smiled and laughed more than in the past year or so of his life. He missed Pope's presence. The excessive amount of words, the jokes, the looks, the- He even missed that delightful pain in his chest he felt when the man was so close and he knew he couldn't truly have him.

After the phone call, they sat on the couch and turned the TV on, but mostly they talked. They remembered things from almost two decades ago and told the other about the past three years they spent apart. Conversations had always been easy between the two of them. Even if Santiago and Catfish shared a language and culture, and if William and Ben were brothers.

They would argue occasionally because they didn't always see eye to eye during the heat of the moment. However, only William could talk Pope down from his own stupidity and vice versa. And when the heat was gone and decisions had been made, everything became smooth between them again. No grudge between them.

Even if Santiago had broken his heart a few times over the years, William forgave him and kept on loving the man. He was smart. He knew that DADT had a lasting effect over anyone who served during it. Even if Santiago was bisexual, and had always liked women as well.

Santiago told him once that it was easier to pretend he only liked women than to try and explain to the world what and who he really was. William asked if it was a secret as painful to keep as his own, and found himself surprised when Santiago said it was.

Years after that, while Santiago was naked in his bed, a thin layer of a sheet separating them from the rest of the world, William asked another question. He asked if it was possible for Santiago to love a man or date one, as he had done with countless women. Santiago looked away and told him no. William asked if it was because of the army or something else. Santiago was silent for minutes while contemplating the question and when he finally answered, it was the first time he broke William's heart. He said: "At this point, I don't even know anymore, I just know I couldn't. I wouldn't."

This had been over ten years ago and it still brought pain whenever Will thought about it. He had been hopelessly in love with Santiago at the time, and he had been hopeful that things could be different between them. He fantasized about a happy ending that he knew was bullshit but it hadn't stopped him from thinking about it.

"¿ _Qué pasa, Cabeza de Hierro?_ " Santiago asked, in that worried and caring tone that never failed to make William feel loved. He even used the nickname he and Catfish would use during their Spanish practice sessions. That brought another smile to his face.

He turned to Santiago and looked inside his eyes, searching for something. William didn't know what he was looking for exactly, and he doubted he would find the answers there, but kept searching. Or maybe he was just buying himself the time to ask the question that had been hidden on his throat the whole evening since Santiago's arrival.

"Why are you here? Why did you come here?"

"I missed you guys. There was nothing for me down there in Australia."

"I don't mean here in the USA, and you know it."

Santiago gave a smirk, noticing that it would be hard to hide anything from William. They rarely were able to hide things from each other. They could see right through the other's bullshit. It was both liberating and scaring to have someone knowing you so well.

"When I was there, drowning myself in mango beer," he made a disgusted face at the memory. William, however, didn't allow himself to be tricked by that commentary and remained serious. "I felt bad for the path that led me there."

"Self-pity doesn't suit you very well."

"And I'm not used to it. I've done some bad shit before. We've all had. But that was the first time that I was alone, truly alone. Tom was gone and the rest of you were here, on the other side of the world." His voice had slipped to the accented tone that his emotions brought up.

"You chose to go there."

"I did. I thought that the distance would make it better. That not having to look at your faces and see the forgiveness that was so easily offered would be better." It took him a few seconds to be able to continue speaking. "I couldn't accept forgiveness and it took me a long time to understand that. And it's been almost three years and sometimes I still look at myself in the mirror and think of Tom, of the pain I caused his family."

William's expression softened. He had carried that pain for too long and knew how it felt. If he hadn't insisted on Tom's involvement on the whole deal, maybe he would be present at his daughter's high school graduation, instead of dead and buried. Talking to Tom's ex-wife had helped to ease that. She told him that Tom wasn't in a good place and she had been afraid for months prior to his death that he would do something to harm himself. That last adventure had probably been a parting gift, as far as she was concerned. William never had the courage to tell that to the others, it felt like a betrayal to let anyone know of their leader secrets. Even if he was dead.

"I've been there. I kept thinking that if I hadn't insisted on him going, or if I had convinced him not to take those extra bags of money, or if I had done anything differently, he'd still be here. But the past's the past, Santi, it has to stay there or it ruins everything else."

"I can't just- Just forget him!"

"Of course you can't. He was our friend. But you make the choice of letting the past ruin everything else or not."

"Did you truly forgive yourself?" His voice was filled with emotion and there were tears he didn't allow to fall.

"Yes, I did. Just like I forgave you and everyone else. Every now and then I wonder... I wonder if there was anything I could've done to change the outcome, or to change anything, and I realize that I can't change things now as much as I couldn't have changed them back then."

After almost an entire minute of complete silence, as Santiago contemplated William's words, he said: "The moments I don't feel guilty about it, I feel guilty that don't feel guilty about it." Santiago exhaled, his shoulders seemed more relaxed now than ten seconds ago, but his voice was still emotional.

"Yeah," William nodded, "that guilt it's even harder to overcome. But it lessens with time. Tom was our friend, he loved us. He agreed to go to every single place of this world with us because he trusted and love us as much as we trusted and loved him. He wouldn't want us to fuck up our lives over him. Then, _he_ would feel guilty about it." William smiled shyly, no mirth behind his words.

"I suppose you're right. You usually are."

"And yet, you love to ignore what I have to say."

"You're THS, Willy. We can't all be like that."

They smile at each other, thinking briefly of the many times Santiago had said some variation of those same words to him, including the silly nickname. He usually said it when he was about to do something risky that William didn't like the odds. Those were the times they would argue. It was a testament to William's state of mind that he hadn't simply refused when Santiago came up with the plan to steal all that money three years ago.

"Not THS, Pope. I've strayed from the path I wanted."

"And what was that?"

"I don't even know anymore, to be honest. I wanted to be a soldier, to serve my country. And I ended up killing at least forty-three people on the job. I told young recruits that life was going to be great, they were the best of the best that this country could offer. I didn't believe that. I didn't feel like the best of anything, except for the best of the liars."

"You've always been the best of us, Willy. You had a better moral compass than the rest of us, always calculating our odds and if there was enough food for everybody. You practically raised that brother of yours."

"And yet I've nothing to show for all of that. I'm living in a one-bedroom apartment, with a pension that's barely covering the bills, my health care plan doesn't cover a headache, and being a veteran doesn't mean shit to this administration. I'm fucked. I dedicated twenty years of my life and I'm fucked. No family, no place, not one fucking thing to show for it."

He inhaled and exhaled deeply for a couple of seconds, controlling his feelings on the matter. It was the first time he said anything on the subject. When Catfish and Ben talked to him, he pretended everything was good. He didn't want to burden them and their families with his own unhappiness.

"It is fucked up," Santiago agreed. "But you have a family. You have us."

"I know, I know. You guys are family. But you have families of your own and I'm- I'm in my forties and the longest relationship I've ever had was with a guy I used to fuck twice a year when I was on leave."

"I don't have a family of my own either. I thought Yovanna was my chance at that but I was massively wrong. Maybe the two of us weren't made for that."

"That?" William asked, almost offended. Wounds still open after talking about them.

"You know, the typical family thing."

"Just because you never wanted that doesn't mean you get to say that I wasn't made for it."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I wanted it. All of that. I wanted the fucking falling in love and marriage. But I couldn't have any of that. So I chose my career over all that. Because I believed that it was the only thing I was good at. But that's because I never had a chance to be something other than that. And the only man I've ever loved told me that he couldn't and wouldn't love or date a man."

As soon as the words left his mouth, William regretted them. He swore to keep that particular fact about himself buried under layers of denial until his or Santiago's death. If he wouldn't be allowed to have the man's love, he sure as hell didn't want his pity.

"Forget I said that."

William stood up and walked to his bedroom, closing the door behind him. Over ten years of keeping this secret to himself and he blurted it all out without thinking and exactly to the only person who should never hear them. He felt stupid and ridiculous and so pitiful. He would understand if Santiago left and spent a few months without talking to him.

"Hey, Willy, can I come in?"

It shocked William to hear the knock on his bedroom door and hear that nickname. To everyone else, he was either Ironhead or William or Captain Miller. The only person who called him Willy was Santiago. He can't remember when the man started doing it and he never understood why the others hadn't used it as well. It made his heart ache even deeper to think this was something special between the two, only his and Santiago's.

He sat on his bed, his knees weakened by the shock of it all, of what he said and Santiago not running away. He had to wait until he was feeling better before letting the other man in.

"Come in," he gave the permission and it felt like a metaphor for something else.

Santiago immediately sat next to him, close enough that William could feel their thighs touching but refused to look down or to the man. Santiago could read him so effortlessly, he would see beyond what William was willing to share if he looked at him.

"Willy, is that-" Pope swallowed. "Is that how you feel?"

"You gonna have to be more specific on that if you want me to answer." He was keen on buying all the time he could before giving an answer.

"Is this how you feel about your time in the army, as a waste of time?"

William was thankful that he chose to start talking about that. Discussing his career wasn't a joyful experience. It was certainly less painful than talking about his feelings, though.

"Not a complete waste of my time, no. I've met you guys and you became my family after my parents' death. That's something I wouldn't change for anything in this world. I liked most of it, or at least I convinced myself that I did. But I sacrificed so much and got so little in return that one starts to wonder if it was really worth it."

He still didn't dare to look in Santiago's direction. He was weak. If he looked into those eyes he was afraid of what else he might blurt.

"I get that. When I left I told myself that I wanted to do something else, follow different rules, change the world. I was naive. Stupid. And I liked the money, I won't lie."

"The only one of us who got a paycheck worth of your time." He smiled, despite himself. He held no grudges over this. Santiago made smarter choices and deserved the pay that came with it.

"If I knew you were feeling like that I would've tried to do something about it. Get you a job somewhere else."

"I was too stubborn to accept anything you offered me. But you know that. Wasn't that one of the reasons you started calling me IronHead?"

"That and because you stole that Harley Davidson from that biker's bar we went to on our first leave."

"Oh, yeah, I had forgotten about that."

He smiled widely at the memory of two decades ago. Inadvertently, he looked at Santiago, who was smiling as widely as he was. White teeth showing and William immediately knew that looking had been a mistake.

"I'd be more surprised if you did remember. You were drunk. Never seen you that drunk before or after."

"I've learned my lesson. No heavy drinking around you."

They both laughed, briefly reminded of all their drunk shenanigans during the years of service and after. Their joyful laughter, Catfish talking loudly, Ben's weird topics of conversation, Tom's quiet amusement, Santiago's gibberish that was neither Spanish or English. Those were the moments William was actually glad to remember. Suddenly, they were embraced by heavy silence and the ghost of a smile in Santiago's face didn't make the next question less painful.

"And is that how you felt about me... All this time?"

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have tossed that on you."

"You're deflecting. I didn't ask for an apology, I just want to know the answer."

It left William speechless for some time, closing and opening his mouth. He wanted to give a meaningful answer to that or even play it all like some joke. He couldn't do any of that. He tried seeking words that could convey over a decade of concealed feelings.

"Fuck it," was his response. There was no point in hiding it anymore, he had given away his own secret. Keeping it would only make things worst between them.

"I spent the most part of my life immersed in self-hatred, having meaningless sex convinced that men like me didn't deserve to be loved. I didn't care for the people I shared a bed with, I didn't care if they never called me back because I'd never call them back either."

He had to stop talking for a second, a lump on his throat. This whole speech had been bottling up inside him for decades, of course, it wouldn't come out without ripping something inside him.

"And when you kissed me, man, I was hopeful for the first time in my life. You weren't meaningless like the rest. You were there the next morning after our first time, in that shitty motel, and you didn't leave. You ordered take-out food and we spent the seventy-two hours of our leave in that room, fucking and laughing. I never had anything like that."

William was beyond the point of caring now, so he didn't try to mince his words or hide the feelings written on his face. He began and now he couldn't stop, he had to let everything out. Years and years of repressed feelings, of repressed words waiting to get out. Nothing could hold it back now. Strangely enough, Santiago didn't seem inclined to stop him.

"I thought 'hey, maybe men like me can love and be loved in return', just so you could tell me otherwise the morning our leave ended. I fell in love with you and was rejected. All in seventy-two hours."

William fought the urge to look into his eyes. He had to know but he was terrified of knowing what Santiago thought about his story.

"So did I," commented Santiago.

"What?" William was very, very confused.

"That night of our first kiss? I started to feel something else for you, something other than friendship. But I thought it was just lust. Too long without any action and suddenly my body felt like that because of a simple kiss? So I invited you to that motel room as soon as I could, I wanted to get rid of that. I thought that if we fucked I'd get it out of my system and things would be back to normal. But they didn't, not for a long time."

"What the fuck, Santiago? You saw me pining for you like some high school boy and just didn't mention anything? Having fun at my expense?"

All the sentimentality of moments ago was left behind, William felt angry and confused. Nothing was making sense anymore. He was an intelligent man, he could not have been reading this situation all wrong for over a decade.

"What?! No! I had no idea you were pining over me!" Pope defended himself. "I knew you were the type that would fuck and leave. I saw you doing that many times over the years. I thought you wouldn't want anything serious. And I was fucking terrified of anyone finding out about us, especially Tom."

"I cannot fucking believe this. You thought I was the type who doesn't call after?"

"You were!"

William closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. There was too much going on in his head right now. He was divided between punching himself or Santiago. Right now, he was far more inclined to punch himself, while ten minutes ago he had been more inclined towards punching Santiago.

"Fuck me," he cursed, angry at himself.

"Is that an order, captain?" Santiago questioned, smirk back in place.

"Fuck you, Pope. I'm having an existential crisis here. Have some respect." Santiago laughed and, much like every argument they had had during the years, William felt his lips betraying him and smiling in return.

"I'm an idiot, right? I spent almost fifteen years thinking that you were the one who liked to sleep around."

"And I thought you were the type. Catfish and Ben thought that, too."

"They knew? About us?"

"No, I never told them. About us or about me. But they knew you slept around with other men."

"They never told me anything!"

"Yeah, 'don't ask, don't tell', remember? So nobody asked."

"It explains why they texted me when it was revoked." William hid his face in shame. His whole world had shifted and he didn't know what to do. He was the most stupid man on Earth. Risk that: he was the most stupid man in the entire universe.

"I was going to mock you over this, but seems like you're doing a great job by yourself."

"Shut up, Santi."

"Nobody calls me that, you know that?"

"Santi?"

"Yeah."

"Nobody calls me Willy either."

"I think it's cute that we have pet names for each other." Santiago's voice sounded so close to his ears that he was afraid of opening his eyes and seeing how close the man was right now.

"What are you doing, Pope?" He asked, voice hoarse from feeling the other's man breath on his ear.

"Oh, I'm Pope again? Let me tell you, I don't think the pope would approve of any of the things I want to do right now." Santiago bit William's lobe, who moaned and didn't even feel ashamed for surrendering. "Now that I know you've been pining over me, I think it's only proper of me to compensate you, don't you think?"

"And how do you plan on doing that?"

The reply to his question came when Santiago pushed him into the mattress and straddled him, such ability and velocity were behind the movement that William silently wondered if Santiago's knees really were giving in to old age. He didn't lose any time in trying to understand further, to read between the lines. He had waited so long to have another taste of the man, he wouldn't refuse when it was being offered so freely.

Maybe this whole thing would leave a couple more of emotional scars, maybe not. William was ready to risk it. After all, he spent most of his life denying himself what he wanted in the name of god and country, he deserved to let himself be rebellious. And today had been quite the rollercoaster for his emotions, a little bit of happiness would help him sleep better at night. Having Santiago's body next to his, that would help even more.

**Author's Note:**

> From their first to their last scene together I knew that there was some past between those two. The movie didn't tell us anything, so I had to come up with a whole story about that. Sorry  
> I also made up a lot of headcanons that simply wouldn't make sense to add to this fic. But, oh, I have them!  
> Also, this 100% ignores the fact that William mentioned having a fiancee.  
> DADT stands for Don't Ask Don't Tell. Also, I got a little political about vet's situation on this fic. Not sorry about that.  
> Pope calls William "THS". And it's military slang for "when a Soldier holds himself and/or Soldiers to extreme standards of cleanliness, physical fitness, efficiency".  
> The title of this madness comes from the song Unforgiven, by Metallica. I LOVE Metallica and there are two of their songs in the movie. And their songs talk a lot about war and soldiers struggles. A perfect fit.
> 
> I hope this fic made a least a minimum amount of sense and that you enjoyed it! Comments and kudos are much appreciated! <3


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